oinobares

I was 14. A friend and I got absolutely hammered after raiding my parents' liquor cabinet. we drank everything in there--creme de menthe, johnnie walker red, gin. A real diabolical brew. We tried playing Trivial Pursuit, but essentially blacked out. Made it to bed, and woke up covered in urine and puke. (44 this year, day 10)

FredG

Like you Spikeman, I was 10. But age has absolutely nothing to do with it. Alcoholism doesn't respect boundaries. Age, personal, ethnic or other. But the same thing applies to recovery - we all help one another

miamifella

I drank and smoked pot in college, but after I graduated smoked pot only once and had a beer or glass of wine maybe two or three times a month. When I was 36, I smoked crack and became an addict.

I am so grateful that I had those years of normalcy before becoming an addict. I do not know that I could ever have gotten clean if I did not have that time.

serious

First real drinking experience at 14. After I didn't drink until 18 or so. Socially I was drinking since 23, problematic drinking started a few years later when I realized that anxiety, hangovers and crappy mood could be resolved by drinking whenever (night or day)...24/7. With a few "never again" days of sobriety. In my early 30'a now

Ghostlight

14. Alcoholic from the first time I drank. Drinking career lasted 34 years.

pinkdog

Yes. I grew up with alcoholics too. I didn't really start drinking until I was 32! It became a problem about 10 years later. When I was 50 it was such a problem that I decided to quit. It had taken over my daily life. Quitting was the best decision I have ever made. Life is beautiful when sober. Now I am 2 years sober. Loving every minute of it. Hugs to you.

YVRguy

Well think I got going at 16 when I started working a job in a restaurant where everyone drank , and I mean everyone regardless of age. I ended up being a frickin bartender in the place...fox in the hen house or what. I finally got out of that industry as I was bombed every day. I then drank every day at college....then finished that and became more a binge drinker. Always drank like an alcoholic.

wow04

We were just talking about this same subject here at work. My coworkers know I am in recovery and are just amazed by my story.

Anyways, I remember getting my dad a beer out of the fridge and opening it. Of course, I would take a big drink. I had an older brother that kept Jack in our barn. I remember at the age of 10 sneaking out to the barn and drinking it. The first time I got drunk was at age 11. By age 12 I was smoking weed with my brother. At age 14, I was in rehab for the 1st time. After other drugs and lots of alcohol I finally got clean and sober at the age of 22.

Weasel1966

I had an alcoholic step father. I learned what not to be from him.

I never drank or did any type of drug until I was 32.... I moved to a new place and started to be complacent about life so I tried it. For the last 10 years I have been drunk nearly every day until this year when I started to get serious. I am not yet perfect at sobriety but getting there.

I am 46 now.

riggedgame

My first taste of any alcohol came the summer after my senior year of high school/before college. From my very first cup of bad keg beer, I was a goner. I finally felt how I had wanted to feel my entire life: safe, confident, hopeful, outgoing.

That was 20 years ago. I've been a functional, inveterate alcoholic ever since, sober for only one of those 20 years.

On my second wife, have an almost 1 year old son, and am utterly flabbergasted I haven't managed to destroy my or anyone else's life up to this point. I am a lucky, lucky guy.

So to answer your question, I knew I had a problem with alcohol from the first time I drank, and it's taken me the better part of my life to finally make peace with the fact that I can't drink, period.

spikeman

Wow, thanks for all the answers everyone. Puts my problems into perspective. And there was me thinking I was the only one in the world suffering. Stupid thought that goes through my mind like a cracked record. I really need to get some self respect back.

Best wishes to you all.

Spike.

Someguy23

I drank, deliberately, for the first time around the age of 6 or 7. I'd be allowed a bottle of beer or glass of wine on major occasions. It would be considered strange in N.America, but it's a common practice where I'm from. I remember I already liked beer but not wine.

Not sure when I got drunk deliberately for the first time, but by the age of 18 I remember about once a month I would rent a horror movie and kill 3 or 4 tall cans watching it.

The first time I ever was drunk, however, I was 4. It was on a very hot summer's day when I went on the veranda of the house I was staying in for the summer and saw a glass filled with a clear, ice-cold liquid. I drank it in one gulp assuming it was water. Needless to say it was vodka...

reggiewayne

14 for me. What's weird is I remember when I was 13, never had a drink yet, I looked in the fridge at my dad's house, saw a miller light with the peel off lid, and had a calling in my gut to drink it. I found that very odd at the time. That's a memory that has stuck with me for some reason.

Drinking really worked for from the ages of 16-18 and then it was varying levels of awfulness from that point forward. I am now 36...

Fallow

Had sips of beer but hated it until I was 12. I started drinkin for the buzz then. In highschool it was easier to get drugs so I did the pot, hallucinogen, cocaine thing until college where alcohol became easily accessible. 21 years and counting.

mirage

First time I drank at 14, I got drunk. The last time I drank, at 44, I got drunk, too. Come to think of it, pretty much every time I drank I got drunk. Been sober 11 mos.

MrsKing

I was 17 the first time I drank. Up until that point I had been TERRIFIED of alcohol. My aunt had been an alcoholic for as long as I could remember, and whenever I thought of alcohol, I thought of her. Her father (and my mother's father) also died from a disease related to him being an alcoholic. I couldn't stand alcohol. I would tell my friends not to drink it - say that it does bad things to people. I would stay away from parties because I was terrified of drunk people. Who knows WHY I decided to go against all that and drink anyway. But I remember the drink exactly, and sitting in a car on the way home thinking "so THIS is why people drink."

Gah!

Forward12

I use to hate the taste of alcohol when I was younger, I would nurse a beer for an hour and drink maybe two all night, but loved smoking weed and started around 14.
Once I turned 19, I finally got over the taste and was drinking here and there on the weekends, at parties etc,.. around 22-23 or so I was drinking about 3-4 shots a day with a little weed which went on until I was 25 when the weed wasn't doing anything but making me very paranoid, which I gave up and went full time into alcoholic mode,...